I am foolishly impractical in the pursuit of ideals. My life has been marked by rash lofty romantic ideas that have pretty much fallen short all around.
Dammit.
DAMMIT!
One day you just wake up and you are able to see all the ways that you have totally screwed things up by your quixoticness. I know that isn’t a word...but it is now.
I have a headache this morning from the cloud cover and feel a little remorseful. I wish I were further along which I know is a full frontal assault to where I am. I am where I am supposed to be...I get that. But that doesn’t stop me from pining away for something that isn’t here. That may never be here.
I spent the night last night with Lane’s daughter. It was so lovely. I just love that kid so much. She is a beautiful person and soul. My daughter loves her too so it was super special that we got to celebrate her birthday with her. We had a fun time, eating, laughing, talking, walking goats, chasing kittens around the ranch. It was a lovely evening...right up until the seemingly impossible subject of her father came up.
I do not want to talk about him but he looms there, ever present in his absence. He reaches out across the mountains that separate our lives, sending a message of “hi” through his daughter. Regardless of how little the comment, it hits me still. Right there in the center of my chest. We try not to talk about him or the past but it is right there sitting in the living room with us that we all used to share. The place where we were once a family together and so it must be given voice. It seems to demand it every time.
So I am returned again to a place where I am forced to deal with the grief that seems as though it will never end. I learn that he lost his step mom and his best friend. This is dangerous information because it pains me. It hurts me to know he hurts. It hurts me to know anyone hurts. And it hurts me still that he left...I wish it didn’t but it does. FUCK!
I know that I have made progress, I know that he is wrong for me and I can see that his way would have sorely limited my life but I can’t seem to completely rid myself of the loving feeling that I have. Which is somewhat in balance with dismay over how he treated me in the end and how his actions communicated how little he cared.
But last night, my quixoticness got the better of me and I said some things to this child that I shouldn’t. It was pain that I still hold that I wasn’t completely aware of...but I shouldn’t have shared it, not with her. Not like that. I feel stupid and selfish and disappointed in myself...again.
So I will apologize to her this morning when she wakes up. I know she will forgive me because that is who she is. When she went to bed last night, she wrote me a good morning message on the whiteboard in the kitchen. When made my coffee this morning, it made me smile and feel so loved. I will endeavor to do better to keep my pain from her, it isn’t hers and I am selfish in my expression of that to her. I will not let my foolishly impractical romantic notions place her as the catcher for my lovelornness.
So I am left this morning with a strong desire to be further along. To not be susceptible to my foolish romantic ideals. That I can be, once and for all, healed of that lost love. I do not desire it to plague me anymore. But I am stymied because that is what great love does, changes you forever.
I met him with the following quote on my profile...
And they briskly slipped into an intimacy from which they would never recover...
Boy did the universe get that right, at least for me. Perhaps that quote only applied to me.
And I ended with him with this quote...
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
I guess my best take away from my behavior last night is that I still have some work to do. I still have that asshole ego that is so fragile and delicate that it needs to be vindicated even at the expense of a young girl. I do not believe that I really harmed her in our conversation about our shared past, but I know that I was covering a bad intention with a good one...and that makes me feel ashamed.
So I will, once again, wish him well. Pray that someday the hole he left in my chest will heal over completely and leave me impervious to his pain. And better able to manage my own.
For now, I will more closely examine all of my foolish notions that landed me in that love affair that started off so beautifully and ended with such heartbreak. I know that it was my path because it happened. I will try to stop reaching back and pulling it out and turn it over to see where I got it so wrong. That has become a fruitless exercise that leads only the the result that I say things I later regret.
My path appears solitary. Just writing that makes my stomach clench. And I am not sure why. Perhaps that is where my work remains. To go to that most delicate spot deep inside and love the person with all that I am that he left behind. There is always more work to do within ones heart and soul. I will see how far I have come and trust the beautiful light that brought me here. I will be grateful that my relationship with his child is what I got to keep. I will be happy and joyous and celebrate that. I will continue to attempt to sever the broken part of me that holds onto a need to be vindicated or released from being vanquished.
I know that love is the answer. I know that love of self must come first, but I can see from my vista this morning that because I believe that some part of me deserved to be left, I am never going to move past this most crushing blow. The healing is mine. The recovery solely mine. And I know that I can do it.
So after I make amends for saying too much last night, I will commit myself to holding my tongue in the future. I will channel all of my pain into an inventory which I will use to love others, including her, better. I will not allow the pain I guess I still feel inside to make me into to someone I do not like. I will seek freedom for my tattered heart from my own foolish romantic ideals that continue to let me down.
And I will add this new quote to my love story:
No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.
And I will remember that it is my ghostly heart that remains.
